Hi, my name is charbile. I like games. I write poetry about games.
Games.
I play games.
You are a player.
Like in games.
Which you make.
Games.
The next one is about games. They're all about games.
Jumpman.
I played this game.
In it, you jump.
Like in games.
It had graphics and sound.
Like in games.
Which people make.
Jumpman.
I have thousands more written. I can share another.
The 2013 In Review Contest [Reviews: 94]
Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk
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Meowskivich
- Blubber Bloat
- Posts: 2199
- Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:38 am
- Location: Earth
- Contact:
Crypt of Baconthulhu is a game I played. Many games are made every year. Sometimes games have bacon themes. In this game there is bacon. Bacon is something people eat. People also eat lettuce. It is usually green and leafy. I used it to make a salad once. I have not played a game with lettucethulhu. If I did, it would probably be like Crypt of Baconthulhu. Only green. And leafy.
There is donations menu in this game. Like in blogs and websites with tip jars. Goodwill takes donations too. I need to drop off a vcr I don't use anymore there. I have a good vcr but this one is not the good one. I sometimes watch videos. But now I am playing a game.
This game plays like a rougelike. Rougelikes usually have procedurally generated maps and items and enemies. They are very random. They can be mindless and addicting. Sometimes mindlessly addicting. They can also be boring. Like walking down random hallways. I once got lost in a hallway. It was addicting to pick up all the items I found. Most of it was rocks. Drinking adult beverages can also be addicting for people. They can drink a lot and have a good time. There doesn't seem to be any drinking in this game. There is bacon though.
There is donations menu in this game. Like in blogs and websites with tip jars. Goodwill takes donations too. I need to drop off a vcr I don't use anymore there. I have a good vcr but this one is not the good one. I sometimes watch videos. But now I am playing a game.
This game plays like a rougelike. Rougelikes usually have procedurally generated maps and items and enemies. They are very random. They can be mindless and addicting. Sometimes mindlessly addicting. They can also be boring. Like walking down random hallways. I once got lost in a hallway. It was addicting to pick up all the items I found. Most of it was rocks. Drinking adult beverages can also be addicting for people. They can drink a lot and have a good time. There doesn't seem to be any drinking in this game. There is bacon though.
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Meowskivich
- Blubber Bloat
- Posts: 2199
- Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:38 am
- Location: Earth
- Contact:
Your poor review of my review only makes me stronger. For I know the riddle of review. What is best in life, Meowskivich?
Now you face a true ohr barbarian.
I am reviewing the game Called Scare Spree. You can select your own characters--how many games have that? None. That's what makes this game awesome. You can even pick your stage. There are like 8 Characters To Choose From. That's a lot and ther'es voice acting.
I played Scare Spree and got the new HIGH SCORE, Meowskivich. What was yours? Mine was the new HIGH SCORE. Maybe we should connect our ohr players and have a Scare Spree deathmatch. I'll go create the room...
In Scare Spree, you walk around with tile based movement to press spacebar at NPCs. It's totally not like the usually OHR GAME. In this one it has sound effects when you press spacebar at NPCs. You other ohr devs have a long way to jump cause the bars ben set pretty high. You'd need to be a true barbarian to jump that high.
A true barbarian, Meowskivich. Remember that.
Now you face a true ohr barbarian.
I am reviewing the game Called Scare Spree. You can select your own characters--how many games have that? None. That's what makes this game awesome. You can even pick your stage. There are like 8 Characters To Choose From. That's a lot and ther'es voice acting.
I played Scare Spree and got the new HIGH SCORE, Meowskivich. What was yours? Mine was the new HIGH SCORE. Maybe we should connect our ohr players and have a Scare Spree deathmatch. I'll go create the room...
In Scare Spree, you walk around with tile based movement to press spacebar at NPCs. It's totally not like the usually OHR GAME. In this one it has sound effects when you press spacebar at NPCs. You other ohr devs have a long way to jump cause the bars ben set pretty high. You'd need to be a true barbarian to jump that high.
A true barbarian, Meowskivich. Remember that.
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Meowskivich
- Blubber Bloat
- Posts: 2199
- Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:38 am
- Location: Earth
- Contact:
Undeadliest is a game that has undead in it. If you are easily frightened you better not play it. I nkow you kids like to sneak on the computer at night when your paretns are asleep and im not joking, this game has graphic depictions of monsters in it. You stuipd kids think you can play grown up games? Not for kids.
In Undeadliest you play as one large map of a town. You have many items spread across you. Your mission is simple: escape with your life. You can do this by pressing f11 when in town and working your way somewhere. When in battle, you'll need to hit ctrl f4 repeatedly. Sometimes you can press spacebar, but it isn't as effective. You also have the option to hold esc but it takes a while to charge up. It's pretty broken.
Overall I'd have to give this game a some number out of numbers. What it does good it does good, but what it gets wrong is bad. I think a lot of games would be better if they would learn that.
In Undeadliest you play as one large map of a town. You have many items spread across you. Your mission is simple: escape with your life. You can do this by pressing f11 when in town and working your way somewhere. When in battle, you'll need to hit ctrl f4 repeatedly. Sometimes you can press spacebar, but it isn't as effective. You also have the option to hold esc but it takes a while to charge up. It's pretty broken.
Overall I'd have to give this game a some number out of numbers. What it does good it does good, but what it gets wrong is bad. I think a lot of games would be better if they would learn that.
HA HA, MEOW! You've activated my TRAP CARD!! Holy Pass allows me to select one game on the review list to try and see if I can fool people that I actually downloaded and played it. If I am successful, you must discard all your comic review cards. But if i lose... I will have to spin the wheel of the worst again. This is a dangerous game.
Alice is Trapped was a good game with good graphics. It was entered into the Halloween Contest of 2013. RMSephy made it and he is a good game maker. Trivia: Did you know the "RM" in RMSephy stands for Real Mayonnaise?
In this game, you have to find your way out of a schoolhouse. There's walking around and talking to people. The thematics of sin and hubris were an interesting choice but I'm not sure how well it worked. And that ending...In the end you make it out before it's too late.
Alice is Trapped was a good game with good graphics. It was entered into the Halloween Contest of 2013. RMSephy made it and he is a good game maker. Trivia: Did you know the "RM" in RMSephy stands for Real Mayonnaise?
In this game, you have to find your way out of a schoolhouse. There's walking around and talking to people. The thematics of sin and hubris were an interesting choice but I'm not sure how well it worked. And that ending...In the end you make it out before it's too late.
STONE WINGS
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Alright. That title screen. Guys. It's a lovingly hand drawn image of a princess holding a chain that handcuffs an elven guy on his knees. The princess is looking at him like he has misbehaved. And he is looking up like he's pleading not be be punished.
And check this, in the game's description: "Through bondage, trust, reckless abandon, and unrelenting loyalty you will travel under, above, and across the earth and west of the moon."
Oh and the game's somewhat unplayable but the music is nice, like it belongs somewhere else. Is this game about bondage, for reals? Maybe... maybe i have time to play. I'll check back with you.
10/10
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Alright. That title screen. Guys. It's a lovingly hand drawn image of a princess holding a chain that handcuffs an elven guy on his knees. The princess is looking at him like he has misbehaved. And he is looking up like he's pleading not be be punished.
And check this, in the game's description: "Through bondage, trust, reckless abandon, and unrelenting loyalty you will travel under, above, and across the earth and west of the moon."
Oh and the game's somewhat unplayable but the music is nice, like it belongs somewhere else. Is this game about bondage, for reals? Maybe... maybe i have time to play. I'll check back with you.
10/10
Return to Airia Review
ELEVEN YEARS IN THIRTY MINUTES
RETURN TO AIRIA
It's a shame this game is on CastleParadox so I can't have any screenshots for this review. Some parts of it look pretty nice and I would've liked to have shared those parts. The rest of this game is pretty typical newbie fare and not worth a second look, let alone eleven years of development.
I know I recently made a big deal about how a game can survive some little problems if it's the difference between getting it done and polishing the first fifteen minutes for all eternity. This game is a perfect example of what NOT to do.
Firstly, there's only about 30 minutes of gameplay before a SUPER abrupt "End of demo!" message. That would be okay if it were a straight-shot kind of story, but this game starts with your dad wandering to town to buy pickles for his pregnant wife, he doesn't find any and he goes back home just in time to go BACK to town to deliver the baby. Then you're his five year old girl and you weed the yard and go inside and when you go back outside, bad guys have killed dad and Mom gets kidnapped and they just leave you there for the next ten years or so until you decide to go on a quest?
At no point in any of this mess are there any meaningful battles. There's a gimmick thing at the start where you can fight literally harmless grass, and a few boring random encounters on the world map and that's it. That's the game. No bosses, no strategies, no sense of progress.
There's a lot of towns on the map (Which is rather flat and boring), but most of them just hop you right back to the world map. The few that are there are full of NPCs that say nothing, rows of look-alike houses with nothing going on in 'em, and little to no clues as to whether or not you should be there.
The music jumps jarringly from Final Fantasy 6 midis to Super Metroid MP3s without seeming to care, the item option on the menu is inexplicably renamed to "Pach". At first I thought that was a typo for "Pack" and was confused, but then an NPC said something about "Packing your Pach" and I got REALLY confused. Is this a thing? Am I missing something?
Every now and then there's a cutscene, but it's those super slow "One NPC walks left 4, wait, up 4, wait, right 4, wait, up 1, wait and now the next NPC does the same thing" kinda ones. The kind of ones you'd be better off without, just have the NPCs pop out of nowhere or something. That's basically the flaw in every department, it tries to do too much and ends up doing everything badly.
What kills me, is that the title screen explains that this game was started in 2002! That's eleven years! And someone is still working on it? They haven't had any better ideas? They don't realize that this thing probably isn't going anywhere? Why update the file after so long if there's still so little to see? I hate to tell anyone to pack it in, but I think in this case you should take the stuff you learned on Return to Airia, the graphics, tags, basic plotscripting, and move to a project that's smaller in scope that you'll be able to finish. If the spark were there, if this was really the project for you, it would be way doner by now. Finishing things is good, but it's good to know when you're chasing windmills too.
Not enough game here to play and the game that's there makes you feel like nobody cared. It actually gets a bit better as it goes on, they stop squeezing entire conversations into one textbox (which is still a major peeve of mine) and the story starts to exist, but it's nothing I can imagine anyone taking time out of their day to look at.
Also, minor history note: Aryan is a word that commonly refers to Hitler's ideal white supremacist, a blonde haired, blue eyed person descended from other white supremacists. Many gangs and hate groups use the name to this day to make sure people know that only whites are welcome. From that, can you see how calling your character the "Lost Princess of the race of Airians" is a bit uncomfortable?
RETURN TO AIRIA
It's a shame this game is on CastleParadox so I can't have any screenshots for this review. Some parts of it look pretty nice and I would've liked to have shared those parts. The rest of this game is pretty typical newbie fare and not worth a second look, let alone eleven years of development.
I know I recently made a big deal about how a game can survive some little problems if it's the difference between getting it done and polishing the first fifteen minutes for all eternity. This game is a perfect example of what NOT to do.
Firstly, there's only about 30 minutes of gameplay before a SUPER abrupt "End of demo!" message. That would be okay if it were a straight-shot kind of story, but this game starts with your dad wandering to town to buy pickles for his pregnant wife, he doesn't find any and he goes back home just in time to go BACK to town to deliver the baby. Then you're his five year old girl and you weed the yard and go inside and when you go back outside, bad guys have killed dad and Mom gets kidnapped and they just leave you there for the next ten years or so until you decide to go on a quest?
At no point in any of this mess are there any meaningful battles. There's a gimmick thing at the start where you can fight literally harmless grass, and a few boring random encounters on the world map and that's it. That's the game. No bosses, no strategies, no sense of progress.
There's a lot of towns on the map (Which is rather flat and boring), but most of them just hop you right back to the world map. The few that are there are full of NPCs that say nothing, rows of look-alike houses with nothing going on in 'em, and little to no clues as to whether or not you should be there.
The music jumps jarringly from Final Fantasy 6 midis to Super Metroid MP3s without seeming to care, the item option on the menu is inexplicably renamed to "Pach". At first I thought that was a typo for "Pack" and was confused, but then an NPC said something about "Packing your Pach" and I got REALLY confused. Is this a thing? Am I missing something?
Every now and then there's a cutscene, but it's those super slow "One NPC walks left 4, wait, up 4, wait, right 4, wait, up 1, wait and now the next NPC does the same thing" kinda ones. The kind of ones you'd be better off without, just have the NPCs pop out of nowhere or something. That's basically the flaw in every department, it tries to do too much and ends up doing everything badly.
What kills me, is that the title screen explains that this game was started in 2002! That's eleven years! And someone is still working on it? They haven't had any better ideas? They don't realize that this thing probably isn't going anywhere? Why update the file after so long if there's still so little to see? I hate to tell anyone to pack it in, but I think in this case you should take the stuff you learned on Return to Airia, the graphics, tags, basic plotscripting, and move to a project that's smaller in scope that you'll be able to finish. If the spark were there, if this was really the project for you, it would be way doner by now. Finishing things is good, but it's good to know when you're chasing windmills too.
Not enough game here to play and the game that's there makes you feel like nobody cared. It actually gets a bit better as it goes on, they stop squeezing entire conversations into one textbox (which is still a major peeve of mine) and the story starts to exist, but it's nothing I can imagine anyone taking time out of their day to look at.
Also, minor history note: Aryan is a word that commonly refers to Hitler's ideal white supremacist, a blonde haired, blue eyed person descended from other white supremacists. Many gangs and hate groups use the name to this day to make sure people know that only whites are welcome. From that, can you see how calling your character the "Lost Princess of the race of Airians" is a bit uncomfortable?
Re: Return to Airia Review
I was totally unaware of that at the time. My education wasn't great, due to circumstances beyond my control.Gizmog wrote:Also, minor history note: Aryan is a word that commonly refers to Hitler's ideal white supremacist, a blonde haired, blue eyed person descended from other white supremacists. Many gangs and hate groups use the name to this day to make sure people know that only whites are welcome. From that, can you see how calling your character the "Lost Princess of the race of Airians" is a bit uncomfortable?
"One can never improve enough nor should one stop trying to improve."
While I wait for MOtrya to download, let's RETURN TO AIRIA
It takes a lot of guts to put on your title card "an old game created by". Was it always an old game? Is this an updated version? Maybe it's meant to give it a vintage feel.
Taylor and Iria are living in Taylor's world (Earth) and they agreed their kid will not know about Airia (Iria's world). Are you following so far? Let's see how Iria is doing. She seems to be doing well. She greets Taylor with the petname "the impregnator" and tells him her garden needs to be weeded and watered. At this point, I feel like maybe I walked in on something I'm not supposed to see, but I'm not going anywhere. I really want to know what happens to Taylor and Iria (from Airia) and their kid.
Taylor gets into fights with grass. I like this guy. Fighting grass is not befitting the impregnator though. Leaving the house and looking for some action, there's a world map with more grass and a well paved street with a sidewalk. There's a cave in the corner but some guy wearing clothes similar to Taylor's is blocking it. Could this person be related to Taylor? I really want to know but nothing happens when I try to talk.
What happens to Iria and Taylor? Where was their kid? The story was really well built up and I hope we'll find out.
**
Also Giz it's "Airia" not Aryan. I think you didn't pay attention to the story. Having actually played the game, I would be happy to talk about it in irc with you.
It takes a lot of guts to put on your title card "an old game created by". Was it always an old game? Is this an updated version? Maybe it's meant to give it a vintage feel.
Taylor and Iria are living in Taylor's world (Earth) and they agreed their kid will not know about Airia (Iria's world). Are you following so far? Let's see how Iria is doing. She seems to be doing well. She greets Taylor with the petname "the impregnator" and tells him her garden needs to be weeded and watered. At this point, I feel like maybe I walked in on something I'm not supposed to see, but I'm not going anywhere. I really want to know what happens to Taylor and Iria (from Airia) and their kid.
Taylor gets into fights with grass. I like this guy. Fighting grass is not befitting the impregnator though. Leaving the house and looking for some action, there's a world map with more grass and a well paved street with a sidewalk. There's a cave in the corner but some guy wearing clothes similar to Taylor's is blocking it. Could this person be related to Taylor? I really want to know but nothing happens when I try to talk.
What happens to Iria and Taylor? Where was their kid? The story was really well built up and I hope we'll find out.
**
Also Giz it's "Airia" not Aryan. I think you didn't pay attention to the story. Having actually played the game, I would be happy to talk about it in irc with you.
Motrya (Chapter Two)
At some point I'd like to visit JSH cause he lives pretty close. To meet the man behind the legend. I don't feel worthy, but sometimes you have to man-up. It's not easy. Have to bite back those tears of joy and swallow your fear, try and not bumble your way through a simple "hello" and not gush about his work like a dumpy fan.
On that note, I downloaded and gave the ol' Chapter Two save a good five minute playthrough. I'm just not ready for this. In all honesty I don't like making fun of ohr games, I don't play them to feel better about myself. If anything there's a certain bittersweet vibe they give me, but it tends to fall more on the sadness scale of things.
Talking with The Giz about reviewing these games, or specifically in what context or standard to approach them, we both agree it's a difficult thing. Maybe because this isn't pro time, even if people aspire to be. It's easy to review a game made by someone who wants to be a game maker with his life, who goes all out, knows their work's not perfect, but will continue regardless of anything said and figure things out. It literally doesn't matter much what you say to someone like that. How many games on this list were made by people like that, though?
To me, Motrya is a sacred cow I don't want to dig into. It's an ambitious game, the people who have worked on it are friends, it's meant to be the real deal. And I love it when games want to be something against all odds. It's not something I want to knock. Yet most every game on this list might be such. And it doesn't feel great acknowledging that given what I've said and will probably say if I continue here.
There's a certain point you can reach using the ohrrpgce where, using the engine to make something on a grand level, you will run up against hard walls. And what I mean is things we all take for granted. Using the battle engine in a clever way is neat, but by simply using it, that part of the game can never be anything greater. Making the most out of the palette and maps is very impressive to those of us who use the engine, but if you wipe that knowledge from your mind, you'll find the appreciation gone as well.
Call it a taboo, but I don't want to jinx this one by talking about a game before it's finished as if it were. It kills me to see authors I like move on from making games, when they're so close. To finish an ohr epic is akin to finding the airship. It's when the adventure and fun truly begins.
At some point I'd like to visit JSH cause he lives pretty close. To meet the man behind the legend. I don't feel worthy, but sometimes you have to man-up. It's not easy. Have to bite back those tears of joy and swallow your fear, try and not bumble your way through a simple "hello" and not gush about his work like a dumpy fan.
On that note, I downloaded and gave the ol' Chapter Two save a good five minute playthrough. I'm just not ready for this. In all honesty I don't like making fun of ohr games, I don't play them to feel better about myself. If anything there's a certain bittersweet vibe they give me, but it tends to fall more on the sadness scale of things.
Talking with The Giz about reviewing these games, or specifically in what context or standard to approach them, we both agree it's a difficult thing. Maybe because this isn't pro time, even if people aspire to be. It's easy to review a game made by someone who wants to be a game maker with his life, who goes all out, knows their work's not perfect, but will continue regardless of anything said and figure things out. It literally doesn't matter much what you say to someone like that. How many games on this list were made by people like that, though?
To me, Motrya is a sacred cow I don't want to dig into. It's an ambitious game, the people who have worked on it are friends, it's meant to be the real deal. And I love it when games want to be something against all odds. It's not something I want to knock. Yet most every game on this list might be such. And it doesn't feel great acknowledging that given what I've said and will probably say if I continue here.
There's a certain point you can reach using the ohrrpgce where, using the engine to make something on a grand level, you will run up against hard walls. And what I mean is things we all take for granted. Using the battle engine in a clever way is neat, but by simply using it, that part of the game can never be anything greater. Making the most out of the palette and maps is very impressive to those of us who use the engine, but if you wipe that knowledge from your mind, you'll find the appreciation gone as well.
Call it a taboo, but I don't want to jinx this one by talking about a game before it's finished as if it were. It kills me to see authors I like move on from making games, when they're so close. To finish an ohr epic is akin to finding the airship. It's when the adventure and fun truly begins.
Last edited by charbile on Mon May 26, 2014 6:52 am, edited 1 time in total.